I came across this article: Alaskan villages try “climigration” in the face of climate change. The subhead is “When a town turns to a perpetual disaster area, it might be time to move it.”
I was thinking about this in following the Oklahoma tornadoes in May; the picture is from the aftermath. How DOES one live in a tornado alley? There was an intense storm in Moore, Oklahoma in 1999, after all. There have been a few articles about why there are few underground shelters in the area; Dustbury linked to one.
This led me to muse on other disasters; repeated flooding on parts of the Mississippi River, e.g. A couple of towns, I’ve read, moved to a safety zone several miles away from the river, but others get sandbags together for a near-annual threat of the town being swallowed up.
I recall after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there was lots of chatter about someone who could be so crazy to build a city, New Orleans, that actually below sea level. It’s a major port, that’s why, and the government is building walls that – likely – will protect it from another storm.
Wildfires and earthquakes and the occasional avalanche in the western US, hurricanes in the southeast. What is the zone one can go to that is immune to the ravages of Mother Nature? Those of us in the northeast US felt pretty secure about avoiding the remnants of hurricanes until Irene and Lee in 2011 and Sandy in 2012 roared through. Sandy made a left turn; it’s not supposed to do that! The American meteorological models didn’t even predict that path, though the European models did.
So where in your country, or part of the country, are the danger zones, the safety zones? Of course, one cannot be 100% safe anywhere, but there are greater and lesser risks.
I’m still convinced that my locale in upstate New York is still a relatively safe zone to live in. That IS subject to change…
